


February, 1990

by Rattlehead_Rose



Series: Snapshots of a Life Well Wasted [2]
Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Canon Trans Character, Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, Physical Abuse, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, domestic abuse, it only gets worse from here don't worry, this one's pretty intense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 20:36:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14340435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rattlehead_Rose/pseuds/Rattlehead_Rose
Summary: Pickles is in trouble.





	February, 1990

**Author's Note:**

> Ages are weird.
> 
> Pickles- born 1973 (almost 17 in this fic)  
> Seth- born 1967 (22 in this fic)
> 
> Another Note-- anytime anyone says "Pickles" in this fic, they're not actually saying it.
> 
> Poor Pickles. It's gonna be rough for a while before it ever gets better.
> 
> Seth is a little less of a shitbag in this one. It doesn't last long, however.

[February, 1990]

Pickles jumped when the walls rattled around him, accompanied by the slam of the front door and the sharp sound of his father's voice. He was shouting for him, sounding livid, but it was nearly drowned out by his mother's yelling for him to stop making so much racket. Pickles rolled off his bed, acutely aware of the stomping ascending the stairs. He thought for a panicked moment before locking his door to buy some time. He nearly fell while scrambling to pull his shoes on, startled when his father began rattling his door violently. "Open this fucking door, you little shit!!" He commanded, followed immediately by his mother. "What happened? Whaddya so mad at her for!?" She asked. Pickles could tell that she was a little further down the hall, trying to keep her distance from her husband. His father banged on the door a few times before answering. "I was in a gas station in Green Bay today, and you'll never guess whose photo was up behind the counter!! She's been buying alcohol with fake IDs!" Pickles paused in the middle of pulling on his coat to think. He'd probably been out that way before, although there's no way he would have remembered. In any case, he could hear his mother nearly hit the roof. "What!! Pickles, open this door this instant!!" Pickles grabbed his backpack and pulled his window open, wincing as he heard the doorframe cracking with each pound on his bedroom door. The door burst open as he was climbing out and he nearly slipped.

Pickles had never felt visceral fear like he did when he met his father's eyes. He almost looked possessed. He lunged toward the window, but Pickles ducked away and slid down the roof, heels catching on the edge of the gutter. A car pulled up to the curb outside their house and Seth got out of the passenger side, watching him carefully. "What the hell are you doing?" He yelled, although it was nearly lost in the much closer shouts of their parents from the window. Pickles grit his teeth, very suddenly uncertain of what the next move should be. There was no way he could stay on the roof, but Seth would almost certainly catch him if he tried to run now. His decision was made for him, however, when he heard his father begin to climb out his bedroom window. "Don't make me come out there, young lady!" He shouted, a threat basically negated by the fact that he was hanging halfway out the window by that point. Pickles took an anxious breath, fingers tightening around the edge of the gutter before sliding off.

It wasn't a long fall but it certainly did hurt. Normally Pickles would slide down the downspout when leaving this way, but that wasn't exactly an option. Pain shot up his shin when he landed, but he scrambled to his feet despite it and started running. He made it about thirty or so feet before being blinded and staggering sideways. Something had hit him in the head, and he was pretty sure he knew who threw it. A moment later Seth was on top of him, pinning him and pressing his face into the dirt. "Where the hell you think you're going, huh?" He taunted, and the only thing Pickles could think of was how his breath reeked of booze.

Seth picked him up and began carrying him back toward the house. Pickles whined, squirming in a panicked attempt to get Seth to release him. He thrashed enough so that Seth dropped him, and he scraped his chin on the driveway as he scrabbled away, back into the grass. Panic filled his chest as he felt hands close around his ankles. "Get the fuck away from me, Seth," He pleaded, desperate fingers clawing clumps of dirt and grass out of the ground as he was quite literally dragged, kicking and screaming, back toward their house. Long, stinging gashes bloomed along his forearms as they crossed the driveway, Pickles and Seth screaming back and forth at each other as the younger watched thin trails of blood appear in his wake. The stairs up to their front door scratched his bare stomach as he was hauled up them, and he nearly dislodged the shaky wrought-iron railing as he clung to it, pleads and cries for mercy having devolved into animalistic screeches and growls as a need for forgiveness gave way to a need for survival. He kicked, he twisted and squirmed, he clawed out and clung to anything and everything, fingernails broken and bleeding as he continued his desperate but fruitless campaign for freedom. Another pair of hands landed on him as they reached the front door, not as strong but most definitely angrier. They yanked him across the threshold, fingernails digging into his legs and hips and stomach in a final push (or rather, pull) to contain his horrific screaming.

Pickles could hear the staples ripping up from the edge of the shitty carpet in the living room as he clawed at it, finding little purchase. His howling didn't stop, but he started to hear his father's shouts again-- not that he hadn't been shouting the whole time, just that Pickles hadn't been listening. Most of it seemed to be incoherent rage-filled gibberish, non sequiturs and fragments of insults punctuated with harsh profanities. Seth said nothing, but Pickles could nearly feel the smugness radiating off of him. He was so damn happy, Pickles could imagine the stupid grin on his face. Pompous douche.

The door slammed shut, and Pickles watched as his mother locked it with an almost grave finality. He blinked at her through tears-- he hadn't even realized he'd been crying. She stared down at him blankly, as if he wasn't even her child. In a lot of ways, he wasn't. Not anymore, anyhow.

Calvert pulled him up by the back of his shirt, nearly gagging him in his attempt to get a good look at his face. Pickles was forced up to his knees, stinging and bleeding onto the carpet through the tears in his jeans. Sounds were still flowing from his mouth, not quite words, but not quite the beastial cries either. As if merely shutting the door had tamed him somehow. The locking of the cage.

His moaning stopped when Calvert's hand cracked him across the face. The force of it knocked Pickles back to the floor where he lay, trembling and crying and bleeding. There was no sound apart from Pickles' broken sobbing-- not even from Seth, who Pickles assumed would be gloating about how finally his sister was getting what she deserved. Somehow the moment was bittersweet. Calvert had never struck his youngest child before, not like that. He was prone to smacking his kids around from time to time, sure, but this felt wrong, even to him.

Molly was the first to move. She stepped away from the door and toward Pickles, kneeling in front of him and gently pulling him to sit up, hands cupping his face. Pickles could hardly look at her for how his head spun, but her skin was like ice. He instinctively pulled away from her touch but she held him in place, examining the scrapes on his chin. Calvert cleared his throat, opening and closing his mouth as he searched for words but found none. He retreated to the lounge.

Molly's prodding did not end, but Pickles quickly grew tired of it, despite his pitiful state. His mother cooed softly, brushing his hair away from his face and saying things like "Why do you do things like this?" and "What made you this way?" As Pickles calmed and his breathing returned to a halfway- normal pattern, he glared up at her, a phrase he'd occasionally heard Calvert use during fights on his tongue. It was only uttered late at night, when neither of them had heard Pickles sneak back in and assumed they could fight in peace. It was horrible, and ugly, and Calvert always seemed to regret it when it bubbled to the surface.

Pickles, on the other hand, felt no regret at all.

"Maybe if you hadn't drank while you were pregnant."

Something in Molly's eyes shifted, and the pitiful amount of motherly instinct she'd reserved for her youngest immediately melted away in favor of something colder. Her hands fell from Pickles' face. She sat up straighter, a more proper form for dealing with a wicked child. "How dare you," She hissed, although it was unclear whether she meant how dare he know that or how dare he repeat it. She moved to get up before hesitating, and that blank look returned as she considered the child before her.

She, too, took a swipe at his face before leaving the room. Hers was less anger and more spite. More fingernails. She disappeared up the stairs in a huff.

Pickles reached up to nurse his rapidly-bruising cheek, wincing at the sensation of a black eye settling in. His head was pounding, his ears rung. He dragged a hand down his face, scraping away tears and dirt and half-dried blood. Seth stood resolutely in the doorway to the kitchen, visibly sobered, unsure of what to say or if he should move at all. Pickles didn't seem very keen on moving, judging by the way he was studying the smears of blood tracked across the carpet. Seth stepped quietly over to the couch, keeping a close eye on his sibling in case he were to lash out like some wounded animal.

Pickles was a whirlwind of emotion. His chest burned with fury, with the desire to get up, to rage, to break a lamp or two, to torch the house. However, there was a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach that was holding him in place, something depressive. Something that told him that he deserved what had happened. That he deserved it all. That he deserved to be booted onto the streets to rot to death in this shithole little town. It made him feel sick.

It felt like hours before he moved to stand. His knees had stopped bleeding, but they had coagulated into the fibers of the carpet and tore away painfully when he moved, starting the bleeding all over again. He limped over to the stairs and crawled up them under the watchful eye of his brother, who made no move to help him. Fuck him anyway. He let this happen. He could've stopped this, he could have let him run away-- in fact, Pickles had begged him to. But he was too eager to play along in their father's rage.

Fuck him.

Pickles nearly dragged himself to the bathroom and shut the door, slumping against it as the pain from his busted-up knees caused his vision to blur and sent his head spinning again. He scooted across the tile floor on his butt to the bathtub, turning on the water and wincing at the horrible sound the pipes made. Just the feeling of the water running over his half-destroyed fingernails felt good, if a little painful. He scrubbed the blood from his hands and wrists as the tub filled up. He carefully peeled off his ruined clothes, dropping them in a heap onto the tile floor. Perched on the edge of the tub, he reveled in the instant relief he felt as he splashed warm water over his wounds, watching as the water very quickly turned a sickening red-brown. He scrubbed down every injury he could find, wincing as a few reopened.

He pat the wounds dry, sighing at the large splotches of blood that stained the towel. He tossed it on top of his clothes. He rifled around under the sink for a few minutes, pulling out every box of bandaids and first-aid kit he could find. He globbed disinfectant on both of his knees and smeared it all over his arms, dabbing it on whatever other injuries could probably use it, including his chin. He stuck bandages all up and down his arms and stomach, nearly exhausting the meager collection he'd found. He didn't find one that fit comfortably on his chin so he left it uncovered. He cut some gauze and stuck it on the gashes in his knees, marveling that he hadn't exposed the bones for all of his thrashing. He wrapped each knee tightly in compression bandages. It wasn't the best solution, but it was what he had-- with the added bonus of being the only solution he could think of that left him able to walk.

He stood shakily, wrapping himself in another towel, and stared at himself in the mirror. His face was a mess-- His right cheek was swollen and purple from where he'd been struck, with a few pinkish scratches courtesy of his mother. The rest of his skin was paler than normal from blood loss, and his right eye was bloodshot. His hair hung in his face, greasy and ragged. His mouth twitched a bit at the thought that he looked like he was dying, but it hurt to smile. A morbid voice in the back of his mind told him it would be better if he actually were dying.

He squinted at his reflection. His face was round. Rounder than he would have liked. His haircut didn't help-- after catching him attempting to cut it himself, Molly had whisked him into the kitchen and cut it herself, which meant that he had a bob that ended just at his jaw. It was easy to hide under a hat, sure, but it wasn't very flattering. He felt too girlish. He hated feeling girlish. It was a hate he felt in his core. He wasn't a girl. He was a man, goddamn it, whether his parents or this town or the fucking world liked it or not.

Fuming, he reached down and picked up the little scissors from the first-aid kit that he'd discarded onto the floor. He took a small handful of his hair and held it out, approximating where the cut should go. He didn't want it too close, so he positioned the scissors about an inch from his scalp and began cutting. The scissors weren't great, they were old and dull, but there was no way in hell he was stopping. He continued sawing through his hair, attempting to keep it even all the way around. Handful by handful, fiery red hair began to fill the sink.

Pickles jumped when the door opened and Seth's bewildered face peered in at him. His brother blinked, eyes shifting between the scissors and the sink full of hair, but made no move to stop him. After it became evident he was content with watching, Pickles continued, holding his bangs between two fingers to cut them, just like he'd seen the hairdresser do to his mother's hair in the past.

A few minutes later it was over, and Pickles ran his fingers through what was left of his hair, shaking out any loose strands and trimming where he saw fit. Seth watched silently, same stupid look plastered on his face. Pickles put the scissors down on the countertop and hobbled over to the tub, trying to hide his wince as his knees protested. He cringed as he reached into the dirty water to open the drain. "If you're gonna say somethin’, say it." His voice hurt, throat still raw from screaming. Seth cleared his throat before opening his mouth. "You, eh... You want a drink?"


End file.
